North Carolina Electronic Disease Surveillance System Del Williams Communicable Disease Branch North Carolina Division of Public Health

What is NC EDSS  The NC Electronic Disease Surveillance System is a PHIN compliant secure web- based disease surveillance system designed to collect ALL communicable disease surveillance information and childhood and adult lead surveillance data. It also includes an Outbreak Management module.

Background  Initial RFP from CDC regarding a NEDSS surveillance system received in 2000  NC applied for funding in 2001/2002  During the spring of 2003 requirements gathering was initiated. This process continued through the remainder of the year  NC published a RFP in 2005

Background  NC selected Consilience Software (based in Austin, TX) as the vendor to develop our EDSS  With this vendor we were able to have a head start with development of a TB reporting module developed by the Massachusetts DOH

Current Status of NC EDSS  The North Carolina Electronic Disease Surveillance System is in the final stages of design and implementation (development of the enhanced system started in January 2006)  Twenty-two counties are currently using NC EDSS for TB surveillance, monitoring DOT and TST  The first pilot for general communicable disease and bacterial STD reporting was in March of 2008  Fifty-seven counties are using NC EDSS for CD and bacterial STD reporting. These counties probably account for 75% of the STD morbidity

Current Status of NC EDSS  This process has been a team activity. The members have changed over the course of our development, but it has always been a team approach.  There have been members from DPH IT, SLPH, TB, IB, CD and HIV/STD.  Both childhood lead and adult lead surveillance activities have also been represented.

Current Status of NC EDSS  At the time of initial implementation, data going back to 1992 for communicable diseases other than STDs were converted to NC EDSS record layout  Gonorrhea reports from March 2005 forward were converted and chlamydia reports from January 2008 forward were converted.  There are records for over 10,000 persons in the system as of now representing reports for TB, all reportable diseases other than STDs and some GC and CT reports

Plans for the future (cont)  HIV/AIDS and syphilis surveillance activities will be added during the fourth quarter of 2008/ first quarter of 2009 in the HIV/STD regional offices  Regional STD-MIS databases containing syphilis cases and partner information and HIV partner information will be converted and loaded  Continued rollout of communicable disease and bacterial STD reporting in local health departments will continue incrementally over the remainder of 2008  At the point where all health departments have NC EDSS deployed, the use of the paper reporting instruments from the local health department to Raleigh ends

Plans for the future (cont)  The Branch plans for an aggressive training and rollout schedule over the remainder of 2008  The advantage to both the local health departments and the state office is evident during the pilot phase and delaying implementation is not an option

Plans for the future (cont)  NC EDSS provides for receipt of HL-7 Electronic Laboratory Reporting eliminating another source of paper reporting and data entry  The initial rollout for the first pilot required ELR be in place for two laboratories (SLPH and LabCorp)  Other commercial laboratories as well as hospital laboratories will be approached and the ELR reporting mechanism for each individually tailored as deployment proceeds

Plans for the future (cont)  Will private providers be able to report using NC EDSS? Current plans do not support this option but DPH is discussing the possibility  However, reporting from hospitals, prioritized to those with Public Health Epidemiologists is planned

Contact information  NCEDSS Helpdesk (Kristen Jacobs)   = acute= recent=chronic=AIDS Triangle=school, square=web, diamond=bar